Raiders of the Last Shipment: Puppy Chow

by Liana

There was no Fables in this month's shipment. Total suck. At least there was a healthy dose of controversy, what with Wendy and Marvin biting the big one (or is that the Big One biting Wendy and Marvin?). Speaking of biting, Scott and Emma are up to all kinds of suck in their book and all those people involved with Red Skull are up to all kinds of no good in Bucky's book. Gee, I'm one disgruntled fangirl this month. I hate when that happens.


Captain America #41
Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting

When I read this title, I find it excellent. The art (when Epting is on) is gorgeous and the writing is intelligent, well-paced and intriguing. But when I think about the title, I get frustrated. I’ve felt like we’re just treading water--cool, interesting water, but water nonetheless--since Steve Rogers was killed and everything is just slowly building to his eventual return. Don’t we all expect him to be back by the end of Secret Invasion? Of course we do. But what really frustrates me is that no matter much I enjoyed reading an issue, I can barely remember what happened once I’m done. Even now, as I sit here flipping through to refresh my memory, not much is coming back. Dr. Faustus is double-crossing the Red Skull. Okay. Sharon Carter may or may not have actually been pregnant but whatever. She isn’t now so she’s free to fight her way out of captivity. Black Widow has a neat-o flying car. Am I missing anything? Yes, but also no, and that’s the problem. Bucky is a really cool character, but despite the last page proclamation, he really is not Captain America and this title is kind of pointless until Steve Rogers returns. Grade: B+


Uncanny X-Men #501
Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Greg Land

Wow. I hated this. I mean really, really hated it. Let me start by saying that it seems obvious to me the Brubaker didn’t write a word of this. (See how I didn’t open with a rant about how much I detest Greg Land’s art?) The characters’ voices are all wrong. What the hell was that conversation between Scott and Emma? I mean besides vomit-inducing? He called her “babe.” And “baby.” Then he rambled like a mental patient when Emma caught him attempting to build a crib. And who cares if the pink-haired chick got beaten up? Who the hell is she? Oh, Beast’s got his dexterity back. That’s not totally, ridiculously random. If you want to phase out CatBeast, you can’t just do it as an aside. It should be a story in its own right. I’d guess Brubaker’s involvement comes in with the Red Queen plotline. My money’s on her somehow being Madelyn Pryor and working some kind of mind control not only over her little group, but over the X-Men as well to make them act all weird. But I’m not hanging around to find out. That’s right. I’m dropping Uncanny X-Men until Dan tells me something’s happened that worth coming back for. Hopefully by then, Greg Land will have moved on to a new project. Grade: D


Teen Titans #62
Sean McKeever, Eddy Barrows

After reading all the Internet hoopla about this issue, I had to check it out. Would I be slapped in the face? Would my childhood be raped? I thought “probably not,” but you never know. Two things you should know: I don’t read Teen Titans and Sean McKeever is one of my favorite people in the world. My page one impression was that this Wendy and Marvin don’t look anything like MY Super Friends Wendy and Marvin. Slap-in-the-face #1, courtesy of Eddy Barrows. My page three impression was that this Wendy and Marvin are super annoying—slap-in-the-face #2, courtesy of Sean McKeever—and they NEED to die, which we’ll go ahead and call slap-in-the-face #3. With all this face-slapping, how could McKeever possibly find the time to also rape my childhood? Well, I’m sorry to say he didn’t. In fact, by page six, I took back the face-slapping and started thanking the creative team for what’s to come. I hate these characters. I don’t know what they’ve done in this title previously (having only read three issues ever), but nothing in this issue leads me to believe they’re an important part of the team. In fact, I got the impression that they’re really a detriment. They welcomed this mysterious, stray dog with no investigation. They reconstructed Cyborg, but I get the feeling this guy isn’t exactly on the up-and-up. And they whine incessantly. I mean, non-stop. So by the time Wonderdog rips apart Marvin’s neck, I was cheering. And ten year old me would have thought that was coolest thing ever. Not because I would have hated Wendy and Marvin, but because it was unexpected and freaking holy shit cool. Now, to address some legitimate complaints. Apparently, the same thing happened with a dog in 52 or something? Okay, well, that’s clearly alluded to with a copy of 52 lying on Marvin’s bloody floor, so I’d suspect that there’s a reason for the copycat attack. The team was stupid to accept the dog no questions asked. I’d say that was to demonstrate that everyone’s too distracted by their own problems to handle things properly. Miss Martian left and she’s the bestest character. Do we know that where she’s going and what she’s dealing with aren’t going to be covered in this book and tie into everything? For me, the only thing I really found wrong with this is that it doesn’t read like the Sean McKeever I love. His writing seems stilted and not natural. Definitely not up to the same standards as his Marvel and Indy work. I could speculate why that is, but there’s little point in it. Oh, I didn’t like the art at all, though I thought Barrows did a wonderful job conveying the tension and fear as Wendy ran for her life. Grade: B Read more!

Raiders of the Last Shipment: War! Huh!

by Liana

“New this week!” Man, I don’t even know the last time I picked up a comic the day it came out. But after picking up the first two Secret Invasion issues over the weekend, I was all skrulled out and couldn’t wait for #3. Plus Dan’s monthly shipment arrived yesterday. I raided his pile (which was not nearly as hot as it sounds) and found a couple wars (Giant-Size X-Men and Fables #73) plus something altogether different (House of Mystery #1) and before I knew it, a batch of reviews started baking in my brain. Wild. Well you know what they say, nothing cures skrullanoia like cookies. What? They totally say that! Hey, anyone wanna guess how many parenthetical phrases I work into this post? Hint: it’s a lot. Let’s see what it’s all good for, y’all.


Secret Invasion 1-3 by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu is all very interesting, as are most of Bendis' ideas. But, like most of his ideas, it's kind of confusing at this point and the dialogue is pretty annoying. Plus, I don't think the art is doing the book (or readers) any favors. I mean, who can tell what’s happening in the fight with the giant skrulls? And why doesn’t anyone have eyeballs? The guy at the comic shop didn’t answer those questions for me (maybe because I didn’t ask?) but he did ask me who I thought was a skrull. I said it better be Cyclops. He said they (the people at the comic shop) decided it's Emma Frost. I said whichever, as long as that whole business gets undone. Maybe they're BOTH skrulls! But then no, that would suck, because it means the real Scott and Emma were on the skrull ship together and maybe they fell in love there and then I’m still subjected to that drive-me-nuts storyline. God. When’s Phoenix going to come back and burn Emma out of our memories and then dump Scott’s jerk ass for good? Not soon enough, I say.

Anyway, he (guy at the comic shop) also said they (people at the comic shop) had a big discussion over whether what happened in the book really happened. Obviously I had no idea what he was talking about then. Now that I've read it, if it's what I think they were talking about, I'd say yeah and that it explains a lot. It’s the whole Tony thing, right? I believe it. And more, I like it. I don’t read any Avengers books, so I haven’t been privy to a lot of developments (like I didn’t know Spider-Woman was already revealed as the Skrull Queen until I read Comic By Comic’s review yesterday morning). And I don’t have to make every little look-who’s-a-skrull-now reveal work for whatever each character has been up to the last few years (until we start talking X-Men, that is). Which is great because I think a lot of it is going to be really hard to swallow. But Tony Stark as a brainwashed skrull hero works for me. It explains Civil War much more nicely than Tony just being an overzealous dumbass and maybe it means that DeadCap is also a skrull and I can stop treading water with BuckyCap in his title. Geez, this skrull business sure makes your brain work. I need some cookies. I give it a B, but I’m grading on a curve right now. Bendis has a lot of work to do if this isn’t going to be a total disaster.


House of Mystery #1 by Matthew Sturges and Luca Rossi is a tantalizing introduction to what looks to be a series filled with juicy tales of intrigue and creepiness. This issue is pretty much set-up, letting us know that Cain’s house has disappeared from The Dreaming, strange travelers hang out at a pub and don’t generally get to leave and a girl with a recurring dream is on the run from a weird couple. Make sense? Yeah, not to me either. But there’s a cool and gross little story from Bill Willingham and Ross Campbell (will these stories always appear and will these two always write them?) from one of the patrons. It’s all very intriguing and just the mood you expect from a Sandman spin-off. I give this a B+ because I’ll definitely be getting more of these, though it may work better for me in trade.


Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (swoon) was really....odd. If we didn't already know (because of ridiculous delays) that something happened to Kitty, I think the ending would have been very moving. But that was all spoiled, so there was no "oh noes!" factor. The inclusion of every hero in New York was pretty dumb and pointless (unless total self-indulgence suddenly became a valid point), though I will say that Whedon wrote the FF's part very well. I liked that everything that happened brought it back around to the first story arc, but it sure made the twelve issues between the first arc and the last super pointless and even more irritating than they were when I read them (a hundred years ago). I mean, what did we get out of those? A stupid new character and some confusing Hellfire nonsense? Gee, thanks, Mr. Buffy. Now, I’ve seen at least one person online refer to this as the “best ever X-Men run” and maybe there are others who feel the same way. I haven’t looked at other reviews yet, but I have a hard time believing that many people think this tops Grant Morrison, the Chris Claremont/John Byrne stuff, Chuck Austen (just making sure you’re paying attention) and others I’m not thinking of at the moment. This issue was mostly solid and if not for the problems listed above may have bordered on excellent. Now we can all enjoy the non-phasing X-Men knowing that someday Kitty’s bullet will cross Havok’s path in Shi’ar space and everyone will come home safe and sound to a (hopefully) skrull-free world. A B+ finale to a C+ series.


War. Yeah. You want to know what it’s all good for? Fables #73 by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham has your answers. This series is rarely less than awesome and this issue, well, I read it last night and my girl parts are still tingling this morning (and that one is as hot as it sounds). The Fabletown army, led by Sinbad and Prince Charming, has invaded the Homelands and they mean business. What kind of business? They’re bringing guns to a swordfight. Oh hell yeah! Plus, they’ve got big ass bombs to blow up all the doorways out of the Homelands. And Bigby’s got his own tough ass army guarding the army’s escape route, which happens to be the last beanstalk to the Cloud Kingdom. And Blue’s traveling his ass all over the place, messengering news, supplies and bombs (and snake cakes) where needed. And Briar Rose is hiding her ass out in the Empire’s capital, waiting to prick her finger when the time is right. And Snow! Snow’s ass is commanding the whole thing from behind the scenes. Yay! Snow is so friggin’ awesome. What else? Oh, there is a slight dragon problem, but I have faith we’ll be able to handle those asses. I don’t like to think about this series too much because I don’t want to accidentally guess what’s coming up, but let me just say I don’t think naming this initiative “Operation Jack Ketch” is a coincidence. Total A+ and that A does NOT stand for “ass.”
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